


Holograph

by kalypsobean



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-11 04:12:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1168522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared's interest in the two-person team of Magic Man and Bantam turns personal when he meets Jensen Ackles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holograph

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [spn- reversebang 2013](http://spn-reversebang.livejournal.com) based on a prompt by [liliaeth](http://liliaeth.livejournal.com), which you can see at the art post [here](http://liliaeth.livejournal.com/463102.html).

[](http://liliaeth.livejournal.com/463102.html)

_When your back's against the wall_  
 _And the time's uncertain_  
 _Consider this question_  
 _No standing by_  
 _When flesh and blood are threatened_  
 _What are you willing to kill for?_  
 _\-- Illumination Theory, Dream Theater_

 

1.

Jared's been following Magic Man and Bantam for a while now, basically out of curiosity and a need to know. They never play with others, so they're not easy to classify, they're not predictable, and that's a risk Jared doesn't want to take if he runs afoul of them by some chance when he's doing his own thing.

Jared doesn't play with others either, but likes to think he's not hard to figure out; he won't interfere unless he's provoked, and expects to be left alone in turn - not that it works like that. He learned quickly about how not to get caught, even by the costumed do-gooder brigade whom Magic Man and Bantam have anything to do with even though they're on the same side.

 

So Jared's curious, and this is something he's involved in, however it pans out; he needs to know, he needs to be ready, and he just really wants to know why Magic Man has this thing about being a loner-with-a-sidekick.

Although, if Jared's going to be honest, which he is at some point and which his Momma raised him to be, his curiosity is not entirely professional, even though practically everything he does professionally is out of some kind of curiosity or desire or aching need. See, Jared thinks of himself as one of those just-one-more-score kinds of guy, inasmuch as he always says he'll stop when he has enough and he never does. College has to be paid for, his Momma's nursing home copay goes up with every one of the President's so-called accessibility reforms, he needs a new car, textbooks... his internship pays in negative because his job is to buy the coffee and he never gets reimbursed. Then there's the things he has to have, something he sees and takes and won't fence or trade or put as collateral, so there's always going to be another job, as much as he can get away with while being the only Lawful Evil on the streets with rubbery, stretchy limbs and a penchant for flashbangs.

Bantam is something he wants but it's a more personal desire, not something he researched and planned and then couldn't part with; it's almost accidental, except these things are never pure coincidence. This was solely, in fact, a crime of opportunity, and it was that only because the infinitely wise legislature of the State of Texas would never have the balls to rescind the deviate sexual conduct clause from the Penal Code, and Magic Man must be a Republican in his spare time, of which Jared thinks he mustn't have very much.

 

~*~

 

It started in freshman psychology, which Jared was taking as a humanities prerequisite so that he could get his required classes out the way, and as such was not worthy of regular attendance. He leaned forward to ask for a copy of the notes from last week's lecture and instead of Danneel, who totally pretended not to hear, turning around was the blond jock senior who always sat in the same spot and never spoke up as if he was using the class to catch up on his sleep. He blinked and passed over his notes, showing Jared green eyes and stubble he'd only ever seen in the company of a complementary forest green mask. Jared agreed to a study date over coffee without even a thought of the job he'd be putting off in order to do it.

Jensen became his job when the date was cut short by a phone call that sent Jensen going yes-sir into the phone with his back straight and his fingernails digging into the palms of his hands as he left, coffee still steaming from the to-go cup. Jared was left in the quad with Jensen's notes and a phone number he wasn't sure it was safe to use. Clearly, something was not alright in this scenario, and Jared had the sinking feeling that his surveillance would turn out to be somewhat necessary before the semester came to an end.

 

2.

Jared's powers manifested around the time he started waking up at three in the morning with sticky sheets and the uncomfortable feeling that he was dreaming things he wasn't supposed to be, especially not in Texas. His Momma told him it was normal and she'd love him no matter who he brought home, and that she was more worried about the way he was growing so fast. Back then they didn't know how to test, and Jared was one of the last ones through middle school before registration turned compulsory, so he never got assigned a fancy name and classes on how to handle his abilities. He picked his own when he started getting noticed, the same way people go to those underground clubs and say their name is John Smith, except he introduced himself as Illusionist and bought some of the knockoff molecular fabric instead of anything he'd have to constantly repair. His Momma helped him dye it and sew it up just before she got sick; he knows she dreamed of something more for him, but everything changed when she went into care and now he just does his best. Nobody took him in, even though she'd raised him right, but Jared's heard stories and he's kind of grateful, even though he's gone from petty crime and impersonating waitstaff to industrial sabotage and not a small amount of black market deals. He probably has half of Texas in his network, but he doesn't keep books with names and numbers; doesn't need to. His arms reach long enough to take whatever he's owed and move on.

 

It's strange that he's run into others but never Magic Man. That's even how he knows Danneel, though they agreed to a truce while they share classes, so she leaves him alone, she doesn't cybertrack him, he lets her know if there's something going down on her patrol, and they cover for each other at school. It's not like everyone does what they do, after all; most people with abilities register and live like they don't have them. Some of them are like Jared and rely on them to get by; some of them are like Danneel, born into it and trained up like it's the next thing below church and Monday Night football; some of them are like Misha and make it their trade, stay legit; and some are like Jensen, untouchable and mysterious and unfathomable.

 

Jared starts to see the signs as he keeps his watch on Magic Man and Bantam, and the few minutes he gets with Jensen either side of classes. Even that, he knows to be a sign. They don't associate; he thinks Danneel doesn't even know, and when he asked Misha he just got a vacant blue stare as an answer. Sometimes Jensen wears long sleeves and layers, even inside, and it's nearing summer; Jared's been in message tees and singlets for weeks. 

"Come out with me," Jared says, in that few minutes before Jensen disappears behind the mask and shadows, and Jensen looks terrified. His eyes widen and his skin pales, and his mouth opens and closes like a fish until the phone rings and the moment is gone, along with Jensen.

Maybe Jensen's ability is speed. Jared hasn't been able to work that out. Everyone knows Magic Man has super strength and an aptitude for magic, although from what Jared has been able to tell, a lot of that is the same as his own - illusion. Where Jared has his flashbangs and flares that hide him and let him morph without being seen, Magic Man has LEDs that he uses to blind people for the few seconds it takes him to do what needs doing. Bantam is light and fast and well-trained, but nothing marked or out of the ordinary.

If Jared were ever to look back, he'd think that Magic Man had him blinded to this, too.

 

3.

Jared takes on a paid job just as spring ends and the redness around Jensen's nose from hayfever starts to go away. It came through the right channels and it's one of the good ones; Jared gets in and out with anything he wants as long as he gets intel and a prototype for the client. He's had the place on his radar anyway - he even thinks he might angle for an internship or even a fancy legit paid position when he gets to junior year - so it's a win-win for him. He goes in on a Friday night, because there's two days people might not discover he's been there before business goes back, and because his classes run late and he can go straight there by cover of darkness. He's done it what feels like a thousand times; he leaves his backpack in his lock-up and slips out, avoids the cameras by sliding along the wall with his body as thin as he can safely make it, and gets in through an open window which was only that way because they thought nobody could get through if they prevented it opening more than two-inches.

Jared knows it's a trap when he sees the motion detectors are off, the red lights absent from the cameras on the skirting boards around the ceiling and the telltale hum of electricity is muted. He slips out and is two storeys up before they know he was there; he waits them out and ends up home at dawn, the prototype stuffed in the inside pocket of his backpack and his own prize on the dresser in his Momma's room. After all, there's nothing in being able to do what he does if he doesn't help his Momma get the best tech possible for her care, and the nurses at the home are the kind who don't ask questions.

He sleeps until dusk, and he's still worn out when he pulls on his street clothes and heads out as if he were clubbing like any other college student. Gen's waiting for him outside that one place where all the visiting cosmetically and otherwise enhanced starlet types go, and they amble along to a small diner as if this was normal. The exchange is done before they even arrive, but Gen pulls him inside and he was taught never to say no to a lady, even one who facilitates unmonitored exchanges of goods and services.

"He knows you've been watching him," Gen says as she pays for Jared to get two bowls of pasta and a side of breadsticks. "I don't know how you got out, but you need to lie low. And eat, for heaven's sake, anyone can tell you've gone and exhausted yourself."

Misha comes by after, when Gen's stealing some of Jared's ice cream, but it feels more like an intervention than a group of people who know each other being out together.

 

~*~

 

Jensen doesn't show up to class the week after, so Jared copies out his notes and has them ready in the next class. He hands them down to Jensen when he slides into his seat just as the lecturer starts to talk. Jensen takes them, slides them under his notepad like it's a note and they're in high school, but he doesn't turn around until class is over and most people are on the way out. There's a bruise around his eye and a cut just below, shaped a bit like a zig-zag but Jared knows it's from a ring; he knows because it's the one Magic Man wears, and the lines cut out just where Bantam's mask sits.

He buys Jensen coffee and flips the signal interrupter in his watch. Jensen's phone doesn't ring, and Jared waits for Jensen to talk. There aren't really words, though, so they sit until the wind starts to cool and Jared has a practical. He lets Jensen walk him there, even though it's only two minutes away, because there's this feeling Jared gets before things go south, like he has a target pressing into his back and resting just off his spine. This is the calm before the storm.

 

4.

Sometimes Jared just goes out even though he has no job, no plans, and so much homework he could use it as ballast in a hot air balloon. It's his theory that if people see him, even though they don't know what he can do, they'll be wary of him. His reputation, such that it is, is then part of his protection.

It's worked so far.

Jared's been restless since Jensen had the black eye. He doesn't know what Jensen thinks, whether someone clued him in or if he always knew and just never said, but he's fairly sure that Jensen wouldn't have trusted just anyone with seeing that. Jensen has to know that Jared made sure the phone wouldn't ring. Jared should have tried to find out more. He hasn't really slept, so it's not like he's dreamed about the possibilities, but it's something that's constantly playing out in the back of his mind. 

He thinks he's just seeing things, at first, making his thoughts show outside his mind somehow, but there's too much realism about it; the sounds, the colours, the blood. Jared walks down the steps, moulding himself to the shadows, but nobody's around to see him but Jensen. Without his mask or belt, he's just a man in a black molecular suit; he's bruised again, and the suit is scuffed across the chest and legs like someone had kicked him when he was already down. 

"Jensen," Jared calls, more to make sure Jensen knows he's not Magic Man come back to finish the job than because he can't help it. Jensen rolls onto his back and tries to sit, but Jared reaches for him and pulls Jensen onto his lap even as he slides onto his knees and morphs back to normal size. 

"Jared, you're Illusionist," Jensen says, and Jared thinks for a moment that that meant he didn't know, before he realises, from some combination of Jensen tracing the emblem on his chest and coughing up enough blood to coat his lips, that it's an explanation. He wants to apologise, but Jensen's eyes are closed and there's some things that are more important, like making sure Jensen doesn't have internal bleeding without healing powers.

He doesn't get the chance.

 

~*~

 

Magic Man looks startlingly normal without his suit; he's wearing jeans and an olive shirt but he still moves without restriction as he spins a metal bar in his right hand.  
"You won't take him away from me," he says. 

"Jeff, no," Jensen says, but then Jared's taking a hit for Jensen and there's no time to try to work things out. Jared shifts Jensen away, as close to the wall as he can while holding his back to Jeff as a shield, then he turns. 

"I raised him, you know," Jeff says. Jared blocks the bar and twists his arm around it, but he doesn't have the strength in his extended limb to wrench it away. "I found him, I protected him, I trained him."

Jared knows from experience that when people do that thing where they explain their motives and plans it's best to let them talk. There's no point asking Jeff questions anyway, not when he's focusing on keeping the bar from hitting him or Jensen and on keeping his chest as solid as possible. It's easy enough to just not let go of the bar, though as Jeff pulls it this way and that, it feels like Jared's shoulder is being dragged with it and will probably end up dislocated. Jeff's moving in closer, though, and soon he won't need the bar. Jared has to be ready; he has to counter with the strongest defence he can muster, with as much of his mass in the places Jeff hits as possible, otherwise it's likely he'll end up worse off than Jensen and that won't be good for either of them.

"I looked after him when he turned out powerless. I fed him and clothed him." Jeff is angry and uncontrolled, so Jared lets the bar go. It flips back and hits Jeff in the head; Jeff loses his grip more out of surprise than any pain Jared can see, but it doesn't matter. Jared shrinks his arm back to normal and thins his chest just as Jeff's first punch lands; Jared knows from the time Misha tried it that it feels like punching a vault door, but Jeff seems unfazed. This is not the Magic Man Jared has watched, or who is on the television and lunchboxes and teenagers' walls. Jared dodges where he can and concentrates himself for the rest; Jeff doesn't seem to be targeting vital organs or aiming to knock him out, so it's easy for Jared to twist away and get behind him, but Jeff turns and the only difference is that now they're moving away from Jensen.

Jared does a basic one-two block and tries for kicking Jeff's feet out from under him or at least to set him off balance, but Jeff goes for the cross and Jared's the one who ends up off balance; unprepared, he feels his jaw move back into his head as he spins. He ends up on his back foot, with Jensen behind him and Jeff advancing, fists raised.

"He was supposed to be mine!" Jeff lunges but Jared never feels an impact; instead, there's a glittering barrier in between him and Jeff, and as Jared shifts back to normal and regains his stance, it seems to push out and away from him until it stretches across the whole alley. 

He grabs Jensen up and heads to Misha's without looking back.

 

5.

Jared called Danneel, under the cover of asking her for copies of her notes and the practice exam, but instead of emailing them like a sane person she showed up at Misha's with coffees and the notes from all their classes. Jared's fairly sure she didn't hypnotise him and make him tell her where they were hiding, but Jensen has the grace to say thank you and it's Misha who's looking a bit sheepish.

Danneel has answers, though, so Jared tries not to mind the intrusion. 

"It's safe for you guys to go outside, you know," she says as she walks into the back room Jared and Jensen have commandeered. Misha thinks Jared's presence is good for business, so it's rent-free and Jensen doesn't actually have anywhere to go. "Seems like Jensen can't control his field too well."

"I don't have powers," Jensen says, and Jared remembers the other thing his Momma said, when they had the talk.

"Yeah, hon, you do, and you have to learn to control it so you don't choke anyone else half to death." Danneel hands him his notes and a card, which she taps once. "Call them; you can get tested without having to register. I'm sure Jared can find a way to afford anything you need."

She leaves, and Jensen looks after her with a dazed, blank expression on his face. Jared makes a shooing motion to Misha and reaches out to close the door behind him.

"Jensen," he says, as he settles onto the bed and puts his arm around Jensen's shoulders. He presses his whole body up against Jensen's until there's no space between them. "If Jeff hurt you, your powers might not have come in at the normal time, because you were so focused on yourself that you didn't have the energy for them."

Jensen doesn't say anything, but the shifting of his hips does it for him. "When you're ready, Jensen, it's okay." He says it because it's what his Momma said to him and he remembers that feeling, that this thing that made him do things other people couldn't was something he could still control, was the most important thing until he learned he liked guys and that kind of took over. 

Jensen doesn't react like that, though; he rolls onto his side and puts his hand on Jared's chest, the same way he did in the alley, and things are still for a moment.

"He hit me because I told him I was with you," Jensen says. "I told him I wanted to be with you."

"We can do that when you're ready, too." Jared leans down and Jensen pushes himself up; they meet in the middle and kiss until Jared pulls away. "You have to pick a better name, though. Bantam really sucks."

"I'll think of something. Kiss me again," says Jensen, and Jared can't find it in him to resist.

 

epilogue.

"You two are disgusting. Ready?" Danneel says. Jared still thinks this is the worst idea ever, but it's Jensen's first time out and he hasn't quite come around to Jared's way of doing things. 

Jensen smooths out the lack of wrinkles on his molecular suit and nods. He waves a hand and the air shimmers before it takes on the appearance of the world around them. Jared's careful not to stretch too far out of the field as he scales the fence and unlocks the gate for Danneel and Jensen.

"Remember, Gen's waiting for us, so we have eighteen minutes to get in, get the product and get out. She needs to have it moved by midnight so nobody gets wind of it until it's back home. Go." Jensen's the first to go, Danneel splits off to work on the cameras and handle security, and Jared's off to the trophy room.

He slips by Jensen and steals another kiss. "For luck," he says, and slides his hand down Jensen's back. He doesn't let go until Jensen has to concentrate on making a field to fool the pressure sensors while Danneel is still in the security room. 

Jensen makes it look like a holographic model of them, like something out of Star Wars, and the model Jared stretches in an inappropriate manner before the lights flicker, cuing their departure.  
Jared thinks this could work, assuming they get out. 

He might even take Jensen to meet his Momma.

**Author's Note:**

> The 'molecular fabric' Jared used for his uniform was inspired by the 'unstable molecules' that Reed Richards (Mister Fantastic) developed for use by the Fantastic Four.  
> Mutant and superhero registration has been an issue in the Marvel Universe for the last 30 years or so, and has generally been written as a Bad Thing. It was also part of the backstory of _Watchmen_.


End file.
